Retired infantry officer. Conservative by nature and politics; Happily married and father and grandfather of eight. Loves V8 powered Range Rovers, Golden Retrievers, good books and technology and think there should be open season on Greenies.
Born in the mid forties and overdue for servicing but most parts still work.
I go away for a week and all hell breaks loose. A spammer got onto my site and left a comment on every post that ever was. It then tried to send emails and because the server didn’t recognize the source it dumped them all in a bin.
90 mb worth of emails clogged up the system and if it wasn’t for the abilities and amicability of Gary Gravett we’d all still be looking at a blank screen. Well I would, you all would have gone on to more fertile pastures.
The old familiar three column template will be up later tonight and my leave pass has finished.
Thanks again, Gary.
Tonight my wife and I will board Virgin and fly west to the land of my fathers, Albany, West Australia. My Mother still lives there at the tender age of 84 and in full command of her facilities. A published poet and writer, originally from the small town of Pemberton, she has inspired most of her children to write.
My three sisters also live in the west and it is the son of my youngest sister that has prompted this return to Albany. He is getting married on Saturday. Courtesy of the cheap air-fairs from Virgin ($300 return Brisbane-Perth) four of my five children will also make the journey. My other son will be starting work in Yepoon too soon after the wedding to manage the flight from Perth and the 600 km drive from Brisbane to Yepoon the night before school starts.I am strong on family and am pleased my children will get this chance to see their Grandmother again and socialize with their western cousins. I will not post while I’m away (7 days) so readers may like to go visit new sites linked on my sidebar. Bastards Inc, penned by an irreverant man with just a hint of ex-service about him makes no bones about his opinions of fools. Marty’s Insight does have insight but I note most of his readers would prefer to be ‘kicking cute puppies’ wich seems to be in direct contravention of my ideas of what is
reasonable but I’ll let it pass. Bizarre Science appeals to my thoughts that science shouldn’t be used to confuse the youth of the country. He dispells bullshit with fact. They are all well worth the read.
Tonight my wife and I will board Virgin and fly west to the land of my fathers, Albany, West Australia. My Mother still lives there at the tender age of 84 and in full command of her facilities. A published poet and writer, originally from the small town of Pemberton, she has inspired most of her children to write. My three sisters also live in the west and it is the son of my youngest sister that has prompted this return to Albany. He is getting married on Saturday.
Courtesy of the cheap air-fairs from Virgin ($300 return Brisbane-Perth) four of my five children will also make the journey. My other son will be starting work in Yepoon too soon after the wedding to manage the flight from Perth and the 600 km drive from Brisbane to Yepoon the night before school starts.
I am strong on family and am pleased my children will get this chance to see their Grandmother again and socialize with their western cousins.
I will not post while I’m away (7 days) so readers may like to go visit new sites linked on my sidebar. Bastards Inc, penned by an irreverant man with just a hint of ex-service about him makes no bones about his opinions of fools. Marty’s Insight does have insight but I note most of his readers would prefer to be ‘kicking cute puppies’ wich seems to be in direct contravention of my ideas of what is
reasonable but I’ll let it pass. Bizarre Science appeals to my thoughts that science shouldn’t be used to confuse the youth of the country. He dispells bullshit with fact. They are all well worth the read.
And so am I.
Over at Whackingday Tex is angry and rightly so. I link to the post because people need to know the left wing rubbish that passes for debate on our national campuses.
I’ll say no more. Just go
read
How anyone can knock an addition to the national infrastructure such as the new Adelaide-Darwin 3000 km rail link offers is beyond me.
The link has been a long time coming, promised by politicians for 150 years, it is now a reality and the country’s export/import and defence ability is greatly adhanced.
Chris Corrigan from Patricks talks about the link having a return equivalent to a tick’s testicles and Tim Fischer rightly replies; some tick, some testicles.
Corrigan is a bean counting profit and loss motivated buisness man and would view any new project from a pure commercial view. Fischer, a politician and one time Deputy PM views such infrastructure from a national viewpoint.
The potential to open up trade between Australia, specifically Adelaide and Darwin, and our near norther neighbours is huge. Who gives a damn if it doesn’t show a profit for five or even ten years. In one step it alters the logistics of trade enourmously.
Don’t think of the link as a 3000 km rail link between two Australian cities. It is clearly much more than that. It is in fact the bottom end of a rail-sea link between Australia and all of our trading partners. Those long established partners; those being developed and those who have yet to sign up.
Defence is well served as well by the new link. When the Leopard tanks first come onto the ADF’s inventory, visionaries wanted to bring them north so Infantry (all situated in the North) and the tanks (all situated in the south) could get together for training. Too hard. The rail link between Victoria and Queensland couldn’t carry them. Rail tunnels alone prevented movement of tanks. This abysmal state of affairs has been rectified but the lesson always stayed with me. National Transport infrastructure should always be placed against a military template of needs during the planning stages.
I can recall in my last days in the Army commanding 100 vehicle convoys to Darwin as the ADF come to grips with the obvious need for a defence presence in the Territory. The logistics of such moves were horrendous on both vehicles and men and the trip could take up to 14 days while we waited for the slowest vehicle. Now they can all travell at the same speed, on flatbed rolling stock-overnight
Corrigan and his bean-counting type need to lift their thinking beyond ticks testicles and think on a national and global scale.
The completion of the rail link certainly ranks as one of the country’s great engineering feats. It involved the laying of 2.9 million tonnes of ballast, 2 million sleepers, 140,000 tonnes of rail and 8 million sleeper fastenings across its length. Perhaps the only comparable rail project being undertaken on this scale, albeit under vastly different conditions, is an 1100-kilometre line being built from Qinghai to Lhasa on the Tibetan plateau.
The link was completed in two years and after 150 years of promises from various Prime Ministers I am pleased to get up the nose of the Howard Haters by pointing out John Howard made it possible by supporting the project with 150 million dollars and talking it up so private enterprise entered the game.
INTERNATIONAL soccer boss Sepp Blatter has caused an uproar by suggesting
women players should wear tighter shorts to attract more attention to their sport.
The FIFA president said women’s soccer needed different sponsors from the men’s game and should seek to attract fashion and cosmetics companies by featuring “more feminine uniforms”.
I tend to agree with any gratuitous display of the female form but of course in the case of soccer I doubt the male players would look kindly to any inroads into their domain of acting, playing and looking like girls.
Marianne Spacey, manager of London club Fulham Ladies, said fans watched the women because of their ability to play rather than their looks.
Who’s does she think she’s kidding?
“People don’t come to watch what they look like and how they’re dressed,” she said.
Maybe not but I can promise you men always live in hope that some gratuitous sex will wander by or, at the least a sexually exciting vision will come into view.
“How can you wear tight shorts? It was proved 10 years ago when the footballers were running about, male and female, in tight shorts it wasn’t really conducive to a good spectacle on the eye.”
Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of Aussie men and woman who watch and play Australian Rules.
I can tell she is serious about her soccer and I applaud that stand but a quick study of the sexuality of the male of the species would indicate that not all spectators are there for the sport (of soccer) and that the FIFA President has a point.
More here if your really interested
Uncategorized
Latham thinks the Eureka Stockade flag would be a great flag for Australia. So do the BLF and, according to
Christopher Pearson in todays Australian, so does the Maoist Australian Independence Movement.
There’s still the related issue of the flag. As far as I can determine, he’s never resiled from his 1992 preference: “The Eureka model is a fine starting point and says a lot about the Australian ethos ? standing up for your rights and bearing adversity. It is time to reassess.” Indeed it is. Considering that the Eureka Stockade flag was the emblem for the Maoist Australian Independence Movement ? as contaminating an association as there ever was ? can Latham still seriously be entertaining the idea?
I too thought it could be a good choice until I noticed the BLF had beaten the country to it. How can a flag, that had once symbolised union thuggery, every be considered to be symbolic of the country overall? No way, I thought, and I put that issue aside as did the vast majority of Australians.
Go for it, Latham. We conservatives must encourage Latham in every stupid move he makes.
My daughter recently bought a Golden Retriever puppy that redefines ‘cute’
What do you reckon?
This is a test picture post.
When I was first posted to Queensland in the mid 70s I soon decided not to read the front page of the local Courier Mail. While Joe Bjelke-Petersen’s National Party were in power they didn’t seem to follow the Westminister system of government. With no Liberal Party presence I gave Queensland politics the flick and concentrated on complaining or commenting about national politics.
Although I didn’t like Joe’s manner I fondly recall his answer to striking electricity workers who held the state to ransome for some weeks or months.
Go back to work, he said, or I will publish all your names and addresses in the press and the people can tell you what they think of your stand.
It worked and Queensland got thier power back
Time marched on, Joe left and I resigned from the Army. No longer obliged to be apolitical I joined the New National Party and helped in the post 86 elections. I eventually left, disenchanted with the power plays and egos of those on the periphery of politics and abysmal standards of some aspirants.
I now reside in the state without thought to politics at least while Labour is in the ascendency and my beloved Liberals can hold their AGM in a telephone booth.
Beattie, the media tart, will get back in albeit with a reduced minority and I figure it will take at least two terms of government before the conservative side of Queensland politics can offer any sort of threat.
Until then, I’ll return to my original stand on local politics and avoid the first few pages of the Courier Mail.
Or is it just
The Age?
This article appears in todays Age but for the life of me I can’t find it in any on-line Indonesian press.
Australia’s decision to look at buying sophisticated warships armed with long-range anti-missile defences was clearly aggressive and would be considered by the Indonesian parliament, a leading opposition MP in Jakarta said today.
Djoko Susilo, a member of the Indonesian parliament’s commission for security, defence and foreign affairs, said Australia’s consideration of air warfare destroyers for the navy capable of shooting down ballistic missiles in space was an aggressive move.
The Jakarta Post doesn’t mention it.
Go see. One would think if a local senior opposition politician critisized Australia it would make to the local press.
Antara, the Indonesian News Service doesn’t mention it. While you’re there look at the International section. Nope. Not a mention.
Tried Googling and although my Indonsesian is a bit rusty these days I cant find any mention of Djoko getting up Australia.
Went to
AAP and if they mention the item, it’s well hidden.
The Age wouldn’t have an anti-Howard agenda, would they? No, impossible. Must be me, ‘getting old – can’t read’ or just maybe ‘getting old – getting cynical’.
Facebook
Twitter
